December 27 Sunday – The Boston Daily Globe, p.20 “A NEW STORY BY MARK TWAIN.” announced that in next Sunday’s edition would carry the first installment of “The American Claimant.”
A unique feature of this story is that each instalment contains some special feature, so that if you have missed a chapter or two you can still enjoy the quaint humor of Mark Twain in another.
December 28 Monday – Sigourney J. Cowles wrote from Westfield, Mass. to Sam about “Mental Telegraphy” [MTP].
December 29 Tuesday – Mr. Robert George Brown and Dr. Lucy M. Hall, sent Mrs & Mrs. Clemens an announcement of their marriage in Brooklyn [MTP].
Rudolf Mosse, Berlin attorney, wrote to Sam concerning Mr. C. Prächtel, rental agent of the Körnerstrasse property. “He will bring the matter before his senior partner immediately and will let me know the latter’s decision shortly [MTP]. Note: from a translation in the file of Mosse’s letter in German.
December 31 Thursday – Sam’s notebook:
The family arrived in their quarters at the Hotel Royal 1.30 p.m. Dec. 31.
Left Körnerstr. 7 in the hands of the servants to clean it & put it in order.
Wrote Mr. Mosse [not extant] that I wanted Prachtel to come & take possession of the furniture & see that everything was in proper condition; that some trifles of crockery were broken, also two windows which I would make good; but that Mr. P. must not rent the Wohnung to any one not approved by Rittmeister Killisch.
A More Respectable Address – Dinner With the Kaiser – Resorts and more Resorts
Flying Trip to Chicago – A World of Night-&-Day Railroading
Letters for McClure’s Syndicate – Hobnobbing in Europe
American Claimant – Viva Villa Viviani!
Books published by Charles L. Webster & Co. in 1892
Bacheller, Irving, The Master of Silence: A Romance
Beard, Daniel C., Moonlight and Six Feet of Romance
Benton, Joel, The Truth About “Protection”
January – From Jan. to June, Library and Studio ran Part II of Will M. Clemens’ “Life of Mark Twain.” (Part I ran from July to Dec., 1891) [The Twainian, Nov. 1940 p.4].
January 1 Friday – In Berlin, Mr. and Mrs. J.B. Jackson gave a dinner by for the Clemenses, Murat Halstead, and Miss Halstead [NY Times, Jan 3, 1982, p.3 “Court Calls in Berlin”]. Note: this may be Jenny Halstead. The Halsteads were on the Holsatia with the Clemens family on Apr. 11, 1878 during their voyage to England. Murat Halstead was the owner of the Cincinnati Commercial Gazette. See also Jan.
January 2 Saturday – The Illustrated London News ran a first segment of “At the Shrine of St. Wagner.” Follow up segments ran on Jan. 9, and 30, 1892 [Willson list, Univ. of Texas at Austin].
The American Claimant was serialized in various newspapers from Jan. 2 through Mar. 30, 1892. The first book edition would be published in early April [Hirst, “A Note on the Text” Afterword p.30, Oxford ed. 1996].
January 3 Sunday – Another of Sam’s letters from Europe ran in McClure’s Syndicated newspapers, including the Boston Daily Globe, p.17 “MARK TWAIN IN JAIL,” datelined “At large in Europe,” Dec. 23.
Mrs. K.B. Barlow, superintendent at the Industrial Home School in Georgetown, D.C. wrote to Sam with her own experiences after reading the “Mental Telegraphy” article [MTP].
January 4 Monday – Sam and Livy left the girls with Sue Crane at the Hotel Royal and traveled to Ilsenburg, Germany in the Hartz Mountains [Jan. 9 to Trumbull]. Sam’s notebook calls the trip “ostensibly four but really seven hours from Berlin.”
Stayed 8 days in the house of Pastor Othmann. He & his wife lovely people. The stoves in our parlor & bedroom not satisfactory. I caught a heavy cough.
January 5 Tuesday – Sam’s notebook on their second night in Ilsenburg:
January 6 Wednesday – In Ilsenburg, Germany Sam wrote to Frederick J. Hall. He enclosed a $100 check to be endorsed over to Mr. Halsey on Wall Street, an investment for Livy.
Mrs. Clemens & I are staying here for a few days in the Hartz Mountains. We return Jan. 12 to Berlin. Address me hereafter / Hotel Royal Berlin.
I lecture in Berlin Jan. 13 — may possibly return here, but my address will remain as above.
Happy New Year! [MTLTP 301].
January 7 Thursday – The Clemenses rested at Ilsenburg in the Hartz Mountains, enjoying fresh air. In those days it was thought that a change of air or location in itself was healthful.
Frederick J. Hall wrote to Sam (not extant). See Jan. 25 for Sam’s response, labeled as an answer to Halls’ of this date.
January 8 Friday – The Clemenses rested at Ilsenburg in the Hartz Mountains. Sam’s Europe letter, “Playing Courier,” ran in the N.Y. Sun and possibly other McClure Syndicate newspapers.
January 9 Saturday – The Clemenses rested at Ilsenburg in the Hartz Mountains, where Sam wrote to Annie E. Trumbull. Part of the letter is in German. This part isn’t:
Mrs. Clemens & I have been taking a rest for the past week in this little village, in the parsonage, & last night the pastor & his wife introduced these games. I hasten to Theilen them mit you….We return to Berlin to-morrow to look at the fambly (they are at the Hotel Royal with Mrs. Crane,) but I think we’ll come back here [MTP].
January 10 Sunday – Sam and Livy returned to Berlin, where Sam would give a reading on Jan. 13 [Jan. 9 to Trumbull; MTB 935].
Joseph T. Goodman’s article, “Artemis Ward,” ran in the San Francisco Chronicle. Joe described Ward’s famous visit to Virginia City, including the Christmas eve walk on rooftops by Ward and Sam [Tenney 20].
January 11 Monday – In Ilsenburg, Sam’s notebook:
The night before we came away the old Fürstin & the Princess came over to supper & spent the evening. They are lovely people & good English scholars. The Fürstin is a poet, too. I spun yarns & she translated them to the company [NB 31 TS 21]. Note: Fürsten von Reuss.
Edgar W. (Bill) Nye, always the joker, typed a note to Sam:
January 12 Tuesday – The Clemenses left Ilsenburg for Berlin [NB 31 TS 21]. At the Hotel Royal, Sam wrote to an unidentified man who’d asked for a picture of Sam, and wondered what the name of his new book would be. If the man wanted an electrotype of an engraving of Sam, he might write Webster & Co. for one made from the LAL; if a photograph, the company could get one from Sarony, as Sam had none with him.
January 13 Wednesday – Sam gave a reading for the benefit of the Berlin American Church at the YMCA Hall, Berlin, Germany [Fatout 660; NY Times Jan.3, 1892, p.3 “Court Calls in Berlin”]. Note: It’s not known what Sam read.
January 14 Thursday – Berlin, Germany. Paine writes that “Clemens awoke with a heavy cold and lung congestion. He remained in bed, a very sick man indeed, for the better part of a month” [MTB 935]. Note: Sam would spend 38 days in bed [Feb. 22 to E.A. Reynolds Ball].
January 15 Friday – Delancey W. Teske wrote from Providence, R.I. for Sam’s autograph [MTP].
January 16 Saturday – In Berlin, Sam was in bed suffering from pneumonia.
Also published in The Illustrated News of the World, a third segment of “The Tramp Abroad Again” (New York issue), This is a serial segment using another name for AC. The periodical ran segments on Nov. 28, 1891 and Jan. 9, 16, 1892. The McClure Syndicate had the serial rights for AC prior to its publication by Webster & Co. in book form [Willson list, Univ. of Texas at Austin].
January 17 Sunday – In Berlin, Sam was in bed suffering from pneumonia. Paine writes,
January 18 Monday – William H. Dana wrote from Warren, Ohio asking Sam where he might look for an unnamed book by Thomas Fuller Sam had referred to in a letter to a “young lady entering society” he’d seen in an unspecified journal [MTP].
Lotos Club sent Sam a form letter soliciting funds for a $100,000 second mortgage bond [MTP].
Scott H. Palmer wrote from Glenburn, Penn. to interest Sam in an “invention consisting in an appliance for automatic signaling on railways” [MTP].
January 19 Tuesday – Townsend Rushmore wrote from Plainfield, N.J. to Sam, having been reminded of a passage in IA of the “voice of the turtle that was heard in the land,” by a new edition of Ben Hur, p. 473 Vol. 2 [MTP].
Mary E. Bartlett wrote from Cheyenne about her “Mental Telegraphy” experience in Wyoming [MTP].